On The Necessity Of Gardening

On the Necessity of Gardening tells the story of the garden as a rich source of inspiration. Over the centuries, artists, writers, poets and thinkers have each described, depicted and designed the garden in different ways. In medieval art, the garden was a reflection of paradise, a place of harmony and fertility, shielded from worldly problems. In the eighteenth century this image tilted: the garden became a symbol of worldly power and politics. The Anthropocene, the era in which man completely dominates nature with disastrous consequences, is forcing us to radically rethink the role we have given nature in recent decades. There is a renewed interest in the theme of the garden among contemporary makers. It is not a romantic desire that drives them, but rather a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the earth. Through many different essays and an extensive abecedarium, On the Necessity of Gardening reflects on the garden as a metaphor for society.00Exhibition: Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands (11.09.2021 ? 09.01.2022).

Explains how to use a system of layered mulch materials, including newspaper, leaves, and grass clippings, to provide a nutrient-rich base for healthy gardens and robust flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits

CLICK HERE to download sample native plants from Real Gardens Grow Natives For many people, the most tangible and beneficial impact they can have on the environment is right in their own yard. Aimed at beginning and veteran gardeners alike, Real Gardens Grow Natives is a stunningly photographed guide that helps readers plan, implement, and sustain a retreat at home that reflects the natural world. Gardening with native plants that naturally belong and thrive in the Pacific Northwest’s climate and soil not only nurtures biodiversity, but provides a quintessential Northwest character and beauty to yard and neighborhood! For gardeners and conservationists who lack the time to read through lengthy design books and plant lists or can’t afford a landscape designer, Real Gardens Grow Natives is accessible yet comprehensive and provides the inspiration and clear instruction needed to create and sustain beautiful, functional, and undemanding gardens. With expert knowledge from professional landscape designer Eileen M. Stark, Real Gardens Grow Natives includes: * Detailed profiles of 100 select native plants for the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades, plus related species, helping make plant choice and placement. * Straightfoward methods to enhance or restore habitat and increase biodiversity * Landscape design guidance for various-sized yards, including sample plans * Ways to integrate natives, edibles, and nonnative ornamentals within your garden * Specific planting procedures and secrets to healthy soil * Techniques for propagating your own native plants * Advice for easy, maintenance using organic methods

Humans have long turned to gardens - both real and imaginary - for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those gardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh's garden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their very conception and the marks they bear of human care and cultivation, gardens stand as restorative, nourishing, necessary havens. With Gardens, Robert Pogue Harrison graces readers with a thoughtful, wide-ranging examination of the many ways gardens evoke the human condition. Moving from the gardens of ancient philosophers to the gardens of homeless people in contemporary New York, he shows how, again and again, the garden has served as a check against the destruction and losses of history. The ancients, explains Harrison, viewed gardens as both a model and a location for the laborious self-cultivation and self-improvement that are essential to serenity and enlightenment, an association that has continued throughout the ages. The Bible and Qur'an; Plato's Academy and Epicurus's Garden School; Zen rock and Islamic carpet gardens; Boccaccio, Rihaku, Capek, Cao Xueqin, Italo Calvino, Ariosto, Michel Tournier, and Hannah Arendt - all come into play as this work explores the ways in which the concept and reality of the garden has informed human thinking about mortality, order, and power. Alive with the echoes and arguments of Western thought, Gardens is a fitting continuation of the intellectual journeys of Harrison's earlier classics, Forests and The Dominion of the Dead. Voltaire famously urged us to cultivate our gardens; with this compelling volume, Robert Pogue Harrison reminds us of the nature of that responsibility - and its enduring importance to humanity.

War is the natural occupation of man . war-and gardening. Winston Churchill to Siegfried Sassoon, 1918 In the common public perception, contemporary gardening is understood as suburban, as leisure activity, as television makeover opportunity. Its origins are seen as religious or spiritual (Garden of Eden), military (the clipped lawn, the ha-ha and defensive ditches), aristocratic or monarchical (the stately home, the Royal Horticultural Society). Radical Gardening travels an alternative route, through history and across landscape, linking propagation with propaganda. For everyday garden life is not only patio, barbecue, white picket fence, topiary, herbaceous border.. From window box to veggie box, from political plot to flower power, this book uncovers and celebrates moments, movements, gestures, of a people's approach to gardens and gardening. It weaves together garden history with the counterculture, stories of individual plants with discussion of government policy, the social history of campaign groups with the pleasure and dirt of hands in the earth, as well as original interviews alongside media, pop and art references, to offer an informing and inspiring new take on an old subject.

Discover how to partner ornamental plants with edible ones for a garden that offers both storybook appeal and a plethora of culinary delights. Stylish and celebratory, The Elegant and Edible Garden takes food growing to a higher plane. Host of The Potager Blog (@potagerblog), author and garden stylist Linda Vater, shares her vision for creating a garden space where food and flowers grow side by side. Known as a potager, these gardens are formal in their framework yet flexible and personal in their edible yields. A potager garden is both lovely to look at and productive. Doubling as an outdoor living area, it is also the perfect place to entertain family and friends. Inside you’ll learn: How to grow flowers, fruits, veggies, and herbs together en masse The function of symmetry in a potager garden Ways to create visual harmony and match the style of the garden to its surroundings Tips for blending your family’s needs and lifestyle into the garden Advice on how to utilize focal points and garden ornaments in your garden’s layout The importance of rhythm, repetition, and harmony in potager design How to position garden structures with practicality and purpose in mind Where to put your potager for not just convenience but also to create a destination Best practices for growing your beautiful new garden organically Create a garden that rejoices in seasonality while still allowing your style and personality to shine. The Elegant and Edible Garden is a vision of the very best things a garden can offer: food, beauty, connection, and a place to breathe.

One of our finest writers on one of her greatest loves. Jamaica Kincaid's first garden in Vermont was a plot in the middle of her front lawn. There, to the consternation of more experienced friends, she planted only seeds of the flowers she liked best. In My Garden (Book) she gathers all she loves about gardening and plants, and examines it generously, passionately, and with sharp, idiosyncratic discrimination. Kincaid's affections are matched in intensity only by her dislikes. She loves spring and summer but cannot bring herself to love winter, for it hides the garden. She adores the rhododendron Jane Grant, and appreciates ordinary Blue Lake string beans, but abhors the Asiatic lily. The sources of her inspiration -- seed catalogues, the gardener Gertrude Jekyll, gardens like Monet's at Giverny -- are subjected to intense scrutiny. She also examines the idea of the garden on Antigua, where she grew up. My Garden (Book) is an intimate, playful, and penetrating book on gardens, the plants that fill them, and the persons who tend them.

By the Editors of Sunset Books and Sunset Magazine. Variant title : Sunset National Garden Book.